Christmas Staff Day Out

My boss Mie, very kindly took us all on a lunch buffet boat cruise around Tokyo Bay for our xmas party, we all had such a great time!! I am very lucky to have such nice and lovely work colleagues!!!

 
We went on the yellow line, so we even saw Haneda Airport! It was a couple of hours and we enjoyed the food, wine and company! It is great! So Thank you Mie!!!

We took another boat over to Odaiba after the boat cruise and a few of us went to Joyopolis, which is a Sega Indoor Theme Park - it was really, really fun - gunna go back and take Fran and Matt!!!

In one of the shopping centers there was a small aquarium exhibition and illuminations - it was so pretty at night time.

And well... I had to get a shot of the Rainbow Bridge in all it's glory didn't I!?!

On our way home, we jumped off the train at Shiodome to check out the beautiful illuminations we had heard about... it really was very special!!!!

Also... just quickly... we have now been here over 6 months and absolutely love it here! Now, if all our friends and family could move here that would be just perfect. hehe! No no, seriously I couldn't have done this day (boat cruise/trains/theme parks) 6 months ago... Japan has made me stronger and I am very happy and will be forever thankful for that!! :-D

Christmas Parties at School

Fran's Karaoke Birthday

Sorry Fran for this photo! But this is Fran with our super cool waiter when we went to TGI Fridays before heading to the karaoke. We sat at the bar and had a gorgeous meal! Just need to have a quick rant... So we were really enjoying everything there, the drinks, the food, the atmosphere, the entertainment from the waiters/waitress putting on a show throwing their cocktail shakers everywhere, it was awesome!!! Then... an English man came to sit around the corner on the bar from us. He was sat there with his Japanese translation book which is great! But I heard him complain a little to one of the staff and ask to speak to the manager... he said to the manager he wasn't happy that he had waited 30mins for his food and service was too slow blah blah blah blah... ow but his food was nice!?! What was the point?! It was really busy and it was happy hour... so what does he expect. (Hm... rant nearly over) I couldn't help but scowl at him! I just feel bad being in this country when I see westerners giving Japanese service workers crap for no reason - we see it too often. I feel like I am constantly trying to override the stereotype, so people won't think me and Fran are like that! I just feel bad because 99.9% of Japanese people I have met are so lovely, and so helpful, I don't like it when things like this happen! Anyway - love Japan - love Japanese people, sooooooo rant over! (sorry) :-D hehe.

We went to Karaoke in Akihabara to meet some of Fran's friends and my friends for a night of Karaoke fun!!!!

Sunshine City, Ikebukuro

It was Fran's first time to go to a building this high... in Japan... well... ever!!! I was really excited about going up there, there is a very special feeling being up there... like a buzz, where you feel you are literally on top of the world!!! If I could live on the 60th floor of Sunshine City I would!!! We could see so much further than when I had gone up there by myself in October, and the mountains to the west of Tokyo looked HUMONGOUS behind the cityscape! I was super excited as the sun was setting.  We decided that we would walk around the building one more time, before sitting and watching the sunset behind Mt. Fuji. The picture below, you can just make out Tokyo Bay on the horizon!

I can honestly say that I wasn't prepared for how amazing this sunset was actually going to be... and it is by far the most spectacular, incredible, mindblowing thing I have seen in my time here in Japan. Gunna leave it to the photos... so here goes...

We're back from Kyoto

We're back in Saitama now, after having an awesome couple of days in Kyoto!!!! We got back to Tokyo around 7am this morning, then went back to our apartement and slept for a couple of hours before going straight back to work.

It wasn't what we were expecting at all... it was so much better!!! Kyoto is a huge place... I think what we were expecting was a big village in the 1900s. How wrong we were!!  
I wanted to write a quick post about Kyoto as our holiday, then I am going to write smaller posts about each place we visited... that way it doesn't seem such a big task for me, and maybe I can write 1 per day! There are sooo many photos, I think it's going to take me a week to sort through :-)!   
We travelled to Kyoto on an over-night bus from Tokyo Station, stayed in a hostel for 1 night, then back on the night bus last night.

I had brought our Lonely Planet's guide to Kyoto with us, which to be honest is the first time I have taken it anywhere with us, but it was really great and I'll be carrying it around in my bag next time we do some sightseeing!!! The buildings weren't really high, like in Tokyo, but it was clearly a city! "A city of two tales" said Fran - haha!

I will start writing each post tomorrow... right now... I must sleep !!!! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz